How Can We Help the Homeless and Should We?: Searching for a Solution Essay

Just a few months ago I was with my friends Mike and Kim and we had been
walking around having a great time in the city. We then exited a store and Kim
said something under her breath like, “Oh, no,” when I looked in the same
direction to find a middle aged man with a drunken stare to him. She knew this
man as “the town drunk” and he had been homeless for years. He asked us for the
time and we replied, but he didn’t just stop with that and followed us across
the street talking up a storm. He was telling his whole life story in the
fifteen minutes we stood there: he talked about how he grew up living poor with
his family and how he wanted to be educated and go through college to get a good
job so he could live well.

But he said his parents just didn’t have the money
and it was impossible. I felt threatened as did Mike and Kim from the drunken
gestures of this man and thought to myself, if this man wanted to make something
of his life, I mean if he really wanted to, he would try harder and somehow do
wh at he wanted. We tried to leave as soon as possible.
But then I began reading these essays about the homeless and it started
to change my mind. The essay “Virginia’s Trap” by Peter Marin especially
effected me because of the way it portrays the young woman that has nothing
going for her and almost everything against her. I though about this and decided
I had misunderstood the whole plight of this population and thought there must
be a better way to help these unfortunate people.

How should we help the
homeless and should we try even though they may not help themselves? I figure
that is the most important question that needs to be answered if anything is to
be done.
Of the essays I analyzed Awalt’s “Brother Don’t Spare a Dime” was the
one essay that went against the idea of helping the homeless because the author
thinks it’s their own fault for being the way they are. The other two essays are
easier on the homeless and want to lend a helping hand. In “Address Unknown:
Homeless in Contemporary America” James Wright thinks that helping the homeless
by giving them more benefits that they will be more prosperous. Peter Marin has
the same idea in “Virginia’s Trap” where the young woman is in need of just a
little bit more money to stay the way she is in a home but doesn’t receive
enough. While Awalt’s narrow view of homeless people gives him the idea that all
should not be helped in anyway, Wright and Marin go towards the idea of helping
the people because they have already had a rough life and do in fact need this
help to go anywhere in life.

Awalt’s statement that homeless people are a “waste of time” is a very
general statement in the least. Throughout his essay he only mentioned working
with one homeless person trying to help him through a detoxification program.
This person failed the procedure and left to go back to the streets and drink
again. (Awalt 239) Just because this one person didn’t have the endurance to
undergo such an operation doesn’t mean others wouldn’t. What we need to have is
a more “hands on” program with these homeless people to give them the attention
that they need so that a majority of the people will not end up like this but
eventually in their own homes.
The opposite view is shared by Wright and Marin in their more lengthy
and detailed essays.

Wright starts out saying that not all homeless are the same
and should not all be treated the same. He states there are different classes of
homeless people and there are the worthy and unworthy homeless, meaning that
only some deserve to remain this way because they don’t try to live otherwise.
These small amount of people, about five percent, don’t deserve the time and
money spent on trying to get them off the streets but the only way to find out
if they don’t is to try at least once with them. If it doesn’t work out that’s a
small amount of effort .

hing for a Solution How Can We Help the Homeless and Should We?: Searc Essayhing for a Solution Just a few months ago I was with my friends Mike and Kim and we had been walking around having a great time in the city. We then exited a store and Kim said something under her breath like, "Oh, no," when I looked in the same direction to find a middle aged man with a drunken stare to him. She knew this man as "the town drunk" and he had been homeless for years. He asked us for the time and...

hing for a SolutionJust a few months ago I was with my friends Mike and Kim and we had been walking around having a great time in the city. We then exited a store and Kim said something under her breath like, "Oh, no," when I looked in the same direction to find a middle aged man with a drunken stare to him. She knew this man as "the town drunk" and he had been homeless for years. He asked us for the time and we replied, but he didn't just stop with that and followed us across the street...

Most people look at the Homeless Essay and are disgusted or frightened by them. Other people do not feel this way because they simply ignore the homeless. The majority of society has negative feelings toward homeless people because they do not know who the homeless really are and what sort of issues caused them to live on the streets. New York City has thousands of homeless people living on the streets and many people are disgusted by their presence. Homeless are considered annoying by most Americans. Its incredibly sad that so many people sleep on the streets. In the essay,...

This is a simple thing to say but is it really this easy to put homeless people to work? There are a lot of questions that we need to answer regarding this issue. Will the homeless really volunteer and help clean up the city of San Diego? Will this be a short term plan or is there a chance that we can get them to work permanently? These are just some of the many questions that arises when we talk about the homeless people. I agree with the idea of putting them to work. But I believe that it should...

How Should We Treat The Homeless? Essay I think that to treat all homeless people in one certain way would be hard for me to do because there are many reasons for a person to be homeless, and some of them should be treated differently from others.I feel that the runaways and drug addicts don't deserve as much as the unemployed and war veteran types.But I feel in my heart that all people with no homes, or lives for that matter, should get some sort of help to survive and get back on their feet so that they can become...

How Should We Treat the Homeless? Essay I think that to treat all homeless people in one certain way would be hard for me to do because there are many reasons for a person to be homeless, and some of them should be treated differently from others. I feel that the runaways and drug addicts don't deserve as much as the unemployed and war veteran types. But I feel in my heart that all people with no homes, or lives for that matter, should get some sort of help to survive and get back on their feet so that they...

Jason Garoutte December 3, 1996 English / Mr. Lunt Why Are the Homeless Homeless? There are many homeless people out on the streets of the large cities in this great nation. When unemployment still hasnt gotten near zero and new jobs are being created every day, people are starting to ask why there are still homeless people in the alleys and on the sidewalks of this country. This seems to be an ever haunting problem even though it would be so easy for homeless people to just get a job. Lets look at the general requirements for applying for and...

There are too many Homeless Essay people; the government is not helping, and there are not enough shelters. Today there are some thirty thousand children living on the streets of New York City. With this many homeless children on the streets, the government should be helping more by building more shelters. The government is not helping in the building of shelters, so the people of our country must help. "A federal takeover of the homelessness problem, with gushing federal dollars . .. will do little to help" (Berne 100). "(The) Government creates homelessness and shelter dependency when it provides too...

I think that to treat all homeless people in one certain way would be hard for me to do because there are many reasons for a person to be homeless, and some of them should be treated differently from others. I feel that the runaways and drug addicts don't deserve as much as the unemployed and war veteran types. But I feel in my heart that all people with no homes, or lives for that matter, should get some sort of help to survive and get back on their feet so that they can become a pro-ductive member of society....

" I never imagined that I would be Homeless Essay." Although I have read this statement made over and over again, the facts behind it remain astonishing. The facts are that there are millions of homeless in America today. Many of these people had no choice but to become homeless. Economic problems such as being laid off work, or the rise in the cost of housing had lead people to live on the streets. Many of the homeless are women that have become divorced or have left home because of physical abuse. These women have no education because they have...

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How Can We Help the Homeless and Should We?: Searching for a Solution Essay

How Can We Help the Homeless and Should We?: Searching for a Solution Essay
Just a few months ago I was with my friends Mike and Kim and we had been
walking around having a great time in the city. We then exited a store and Kim
said something under her breath like, "Oh, no," when I looked in the same
direction to find a middle aged man with a drunken stare to him. She knew this
man as "the town drunk" and he had been homeless for years. He asked us for the
time and we replied, but he did